Get ready for kinder gentler CN, exec tells shippers

TORONTO — Canadian National Railway is going to start being more of a team player.

That’s the word from the company’s assistant vice president of sales and marketing, Peter Ladouceur, who addressed a room full of shippers at the State of Logistics dinner in Toronto Tuesday night.

"You’re going to see a new CN," Ladouceur promised. "You’re going to see CN come out in a more customer-centric manner. We won’t be driving our agenda only, all the time, as we have done in the past 10 years."

In a surprisingly blunt conclusion to his speech, Ladouceur admitted CN has been aggressive with its customers in the past.

"Our bedside manners kind of suck. We haven’t been good bedside doctors," he said. "We know darn well that we push change pretty hard and in some cases it probably felt as though we were shoving it down your throats. I lived through that. You lived through that. My message tonight is that we’re not going to abandon the principles of running a scheduled railroad but we are going to be a lot more cognizant of the fact that there is this thing called a supply chain. That it’s not just about CN." 

CN will adopt a more cooperative attitude when
events threaten the flow of goods, the company promises

Ladouceur comments come a couple of months after an NRG Research Group survey found that a large majority of shippers were unhappy with the levels of service that both CN and CP Rail provide.

Between the two major railways, a majority of shippers indicated that CN is the quicker and more efficient operation, but those who use both railways were more satisfied with CP’s service by a two-to-one margin.

Ladouceur said the change in the company’s attitude comes directly from "the top of the house," led by senior executives who have recognized the need to fit into the broader supply chain in Canada.

"We have a new CEO (Claude Mongeau), a relatively new CFO (Luc Jobin, who joined the company in mid-2009), new CMO (chief marketing officer Jean-Jacques Ruest)," he said, "and these guys are different."

Ladouceur said CN will adopt a more cooperative attitude when events threaten the flow of goods.

"When the ground count at Deltaport goes to 40,000 feet, it’s not a case where CN can bash TSI [Terminal Systems Inc., the owner of Deltaport, Vancouver’s biggest container port] or TSI can bash CN. We’re not doing that anymore," he said. "We’re working collectively with TSI and Port Metro Vancouver and the lines of call there to figure this stuff out so that you folks can get your TV sets or your furniture or whatever you need."

He admitted the softer approach will probably take some time to materialize.

"We were kind of tough for about 10 years, we’re not going to change on a dime," he said. "But if you still have events like this and if you care to ask me back a year from now, I can tell this audience, or I can ask the audience, ‘Did we do it, or are we still a bunch of hard asses.’"

The State of Logistics dinner was organized by the Toronto chapter of the Chicago-based Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. Also on the bill for the evening was Doug Harrison, president of Calyx Transportation Group. (be sure to check back tomorrow for more on the event).